Operation Catechism: How The Allies Sank Hitler's 'Unsinkable' Battleship | The Tirpitz | Timeline

[Music] on the night of November the 12th 1944 200 young Airmen set off on one of the most daring raids of the second world [Music] war there's the target go and do it at the time we just got on and did it though that was our job 70 years ago their target was lurking in a nor region F deep inside the Arctic Circle the Allies had already attacked it on 33 separate occasions we were beginning to think that it really was Unsinkable they told us and what this is the strongest ship of the word and

never can sink the target was the battleship turits Hitler called it the pride of the German Navy Churchill named it the Beast and he was willing to the raf's finest units nine Squadron and the Dam Busters to sink it it never occurred to us if we were in danger the chap either side of us may have been but we weren't that day the Dam Busters should have been shot out of the sky we uncover new evidence to help explain one of the luckiest escapes of the [Music] war and perhaps for the final time key participants

in one of the most audacious raids of World War II tell their story we said to ourselves well we've sunk the beast at [Music] last 70 years after the sinking of the battleship turits historian Patrick Bishop is exploring the Norwegian FJ that was its final resting place it looks like I don't know maybe uh one of the ship's plates you can see some riveting here so there's still little scattered sort of momentos uh of turits lying around here today after all this time Patrick has come to Norway to find out how the raf's 9 Squadron

and 617 Squadron the Dam Busters finally managed to sink the unsinkable battleship day is always commemorated as tpit day by 617 Squadron but it could be remembered in a very different fashion it could have been remembered as the day that 617 Squadron was annihilated it's an enduring mystery why was it that they were able to get in there bomb and get away with no losses it could have gone very very differently 70 years ago the turits was the greatest single Maritime threat to the allies at 35 mph it was faster than any British Battleship its

8 15in guns could fire 17 Mi Beyond the Horizon it could sink you before you even saw [Music] it its armor was so thick that conventional bombs bounced off it an impressive giant of a ship tpit was built to be as nearly Unthinkable as a ship could be when Hitler launched the tpet on April the 1st 1939 it was worldwide news teenager Tony Iverson was mesmerized by the flickering images I remember seeing in a cinemar in York where I lived seeing a newsreal of this Battleship this huge thing I had no idea when I saw

this with my girlfriend that one day I might be linked with tip Tony was part of a generation who grew up with the romance of flying every young man in the world wanted to fly it didn't hurt sometimes on a Saturday night when you'd come back to the local dance when you hoped a girl would say what have you been doing today you could say oh well it's been dicing with death in the heavens Tony now 94 flew Spitfires in the Battle of Britain he then joined the elite bomber Force the Dam [Music] Busters in

1943 the dambusters 617 Squadron had breached the ru dams using inventor Barnes Wallace's bouncing bomb the Squadron became the raf's experts in Precision bombing a year after the Dam's raid most of the Squadron had moved on or had been killed in action it was time for the next generation of the best young flyers I was at University and I decided that the Air Force really was for me I made the big mistake of saying that two and two made four I should have said five and because I said four I became a navigator and I

was not very pleased at the time because I wanted to be a pilot I was a student and I was doing um electrical engineering I didn't want to go into the army I didn't want to go into the Navy and I thought the Air Force sounded pretty good but um I was always a bit wied about my eyes because they they weren't as really as good as they should been so I just leared the lies that they were the bottom line or whatever it was that they were being asked and reel that off and pass

the eye test within months of joining the dambusters the new crews in their Lancaster bombers would be fighting in one of the most inhospitable and environments of the war after the German occupation of Norway the Arctic Circle became one of the key Battlegrounds of the conflict in January 1942 Hitler ordered his biggest battleship North to threaten the Arctic convoys delivering essential supplies to the [Music] Russians Churchill promised Stalin that he would maintain this Lifeline without it the Soviet war effort would [Music] collapse in June 1942 the largest Arctic Convoy of the war 35 Merchant ships

set sail escorted by 43 warships they were only too well aware that the turits was poised to pounce the possibility that it's going to to put to se is enough to create what can only be described I think as panic the rumor caused the admiralty to issue a fatal order the Convoy is to scatter that means that the escort this massive escort that they've gathered is to return home and that these Merchant men are basically on their own this is an extraordinary decision of those ships that set out only 11 actually make it to Port

they're sunk not by turpid but by German submarines and and the luffer who have a field a so without firing a sh shot turits had actually scored an enormous psychological Victory against the Allies this the biggest Arctic Convoy loss of the war provoked a furious response from Winston Churchill the destruction of this ship is the greatest event at sea at the present time no other Target is comparable to it with royal Navy ships desperately needed in the Far East the British through everything at the turits including dive bombers manned Torpedoes and [ __ ] submarines

in 2 years 31 attempts failed to sink The Phantom Menace so Churchill called in the Dam Busters to finally finish the job they would have just two months to sink the unsinkable turits before the onset of the Arctic winter if they failed the British Navy in the North Atlantic would be tied up until the spring the dambusters were to be joined by nine Squadron one of the most distinguished in the RAF we were called to a special briefing at Woodall Spar at our friend's base where um their wi Commander flying man called Tate took us

into um a briefing room which had been totally blacked out so we knew that it was something special and he was a fairly dramatic man and he enjoyed having us all sit down and then suddenly drawing the the cloth of a model in front of him which was of course the tpet gasp from everybody the Beast was hiding at the northern tip of Norway well out of the range of a direct attack from Britain so the RAF came up with a daring plan we um were told to practice a lot of dingy drill while dingil

was the procedure for getting out of an airplane if you had to land it in the sea they were going to attack the ship by the Soviet Union on September the 11th the two squadrons took off on an unprecedented 3,400 m mission they first flew the 1100 mil to Russia then after refueling and at the very limit of a Lancaster's range they flew on to bomb the turits in their Bombay they were carrying the new Barnes Wallace designed 12,000 tall boy it was a revolutionary Precision weapon in the right hands it flew like a dart

Barnes Wallace has designed it so it didn't tumble over like a bomb might it was dropped and flew directly onto the point it was aimed at I hope tall boy was beautifully designed if you can say that about him bomb it had fins at the rear so that when it fell it went into a spin that meant it was flying very accurately The Raid would have such propaganda value that a film camera went along to record it after a 6-hour flight from Russia the lancasters approached the target I could see tets over the front of

my Lancaster and about the same time I saw all the smoke generated startup and they had about 200 plus so they filled the field very rapidly with with smoke cuz my bom Emma said it's no good skip I can't see anything so we just we just had to go most of the tall boys plunged harmlessly into the smoke screen but having survived this attack the turits was now forced to make a fatal move in 1944 despite 5 years of conflict the crew of the turits was largely immune to the hardships of the war historian Patrick

Bishop has come to tromo turits Museum located in a former German bunker he's exploring the daily routine on board with curator life arberg this is a wallet phone by diver May thank you sorry and have a tobacco card so this is like the your your weekly tobacco r yeah but under the card what do we got something different ah my gosh I think we all know what that is don't we tobacco and condoms uhhuh two Staples of the of the of the Sean's equipment when they went to Shore that is a cup of for coffee

from the ship taken out by some of the workers who was cutting the ship after the war yeah so I mean it's a nice bit of Crockery that isn't it it looks like they live pretty well the ship had a crew of 2,400 men it was so large it ran its own Bakery Cinema and post office it even produced its own newspaper Carl hin Kling was 21 years old when he first stepped on board the 42,2 200 ton turits we know that always here he had me as [Laughter] my me we we we were young

and we we were proud and and and the gods looked for a nice spu uniform you understand German troops retreated on all fronts and starving German civilians faced daily attacks on their cities life on the turits remained largely unaffected we have uh had good food and the clean rooms clean wash three days in the week we have meat and in the evening we have uh uh sausage and and such things cheese but in October 1944 as Soviet forces Advanced into Norway the tpit was moved 120 Mi South to Tromso it was a fatal mistake the

ship was now almost within range of a direct attack the news encouraged Churchill to pile on the pressure I consider that every effort should be made to attack this ship even if losses have to be incurred the RAF went into a frenzy of activity if the Lancaster bombers were completely stripped of excess weight and filled with extra fuel they might just reach their target our engines were changed and and armor was taken out the one behind the pilot seat was taken out the big piece of armor plating they had to reduce the weight so they

took out the mid uper turret in its entirety they took the guns out of the front turret and reduced the amount of ammunition in the rear turret losing weight increased range but the lancasters needed to carry much more 100 octane aviation fuel to get them to tromo the extra fuel tanks was a Wellington tank of 200 g and a mosquito tank of 50 gallons one on top of the other placed inside the fugil L where the rest sped would have been and it was so dangerous that gr crew had to wear plimsoles because of the

danger of a spark if they wore their boots and that would probably blow up the whole aircraft at least one perhaps several more around it as well I have to say that despite all the was covered by a blanket of low Cloud but most people didn't bomb because they couldn't see the tets it very disappointing all that preparation and all that hard work and all that flying and to arrive together at the right time over the right point and then to be wasted is I won't say disheartening because we weren't dishearten we were annoyed perhaps

but after the failure of this raid there was to be no letup the crews were ordered back again there was no time to plan a new route and there was one more shock in store for them they said uh sorry to tell you chaps but uh since the last trip the Germans have moved two squadrons of Fighters uh to be near the turits at B fos in Norway um well this made us swallow a little bit we were a little apprehensive because of course we hadn't got the mid uper turret but like good little boys

we all went off but new evidence has emerged that suggests the Dam Busters and nine Squadron were in even greater danger than they ever [Music] imagined in November 1944 the RAF Was preparing to attack the battleship turits for the third time in 2 months the British were still hoping to take the Nazis by surprise even though they'd be flying the same route but new evidence suggests the Germans may have been expecting them on the Norwegian island of andoya historian Patrick Bishop is investigating a story that the Germans repositioned some of their radar before the third

raid Patrick has come to the site of a Vasan radar installation the most powerful German radar of the conflict he's with local resident John Ronald norheim who was brought along a photograph his father took at the end of the [Music] war Hitler had this obsession with the idea that were the Allies even though they were ass sure Normandy Landings had gone ahead he still clung to this belief that there'd be an Allied Landing in Norway as well that was I was I was told that this TR that was picking up all the uh the ship

traffic going towards Russia now if we look at the this picture here we've got this Landmark which is it's very prominent uh Rocky island just behind us and you can see with that in the bottom right hand corner of the picture um this box structure that's on the back of the scaffolding if you like is actually the rear of of the radar set so that would mean that the that the thing is actually the vasam is pointing in land it's not pointing out to sea where you might expect it to be yeah this is very

interesting because it was possible for the Vasan radar to actually pick up the the raid as it came and as it HED in on tronzo to bomb the tpet with the radar repositioned to track the Flyers coming from in land all it needed was one phone call to The Fighter Squadron at bardos in just 13 minutes the fighters would be swarming around the turits ready to shoot the lancasters out of the sky one of those crack fighter pilots at bardos now lives Halfway Around the World in Southern California Kurt Schulz aged 92 meets with a

group of Veteran flyers every week 70 years ago he wouldn't have hesitated to shoot them down it's a friendship that has developed and I'm so grateful for that because I was the enemy Kurt started the war as a navigator on bombing raids over [Music] England but later he became a fighter pilot he was posted to a squadron of fighter Aces based deep inside the Arctic Circle he wasn't prepared for their relaxed attitude to discipline I just a few days after they had tried to kill Hitler and you know the the the salute was like that

all of a sudden they all walked in and instead of greeting like that they greeted like that you know I saw CH could what happened to you so but it was a very loose spch as far as real discipline was concerned but they were very very successful Kurt flew 63 missions and had three confirmed kills some of his colleagues at bardos were among the highest scoring aces of the war maor he had the 199 victories and I think Captain dur who was a group Commander had maybe 160 yoka nor had around 100 these three together

had 600 victories almost as the lancasters took off in the early hours of November the 12th from the Frozen Coastline of Northern Scotland the fighters at bardos were praying on their minds this would be their last chance to sink the turits before the onset of the Arctic winter it was cold but when you're 2021 you know you don't feel the cold as say but it was cold if we wanted to have a pee some kind WAFF in the mess at loss he had provided milk bottles and of course there were the OB joke about those

looking back they just pitched us into it as it were there's the target you've got the weapon go and go and do it um at the time we just got on and did it that that was our job it was a long long journey there was no radio contact of course the only way we could navate I could navate anyhow was take the odd shot of whichever star was appropriate and just keep my fingers crossed at 7:00 a.m. the bombers turned East through what they still believed was a radar Gap but German records show they

had already been spotted defenseless Laden with fuel and with 2 and 1/2 tons of high explosives inside their tall boy bombs they were extremely vulnerable we had found we were flying into a a gin clear sky which which is perfect for our job absolutely but then a little thought came well it it's pretty it'll suit the fighters pretty well too at 7:40 the lancasters began their run into the target from neutral Sweden [Music] the turits was already receiving information of confused sightings some placing bombers on a course to Russia others placing them 100 km to

the north no one alerted the bofos airbase then at 8:09 the tpit on its own radar spotted the bomber Force just 30 minutes away and it was coming straight at them the alarm finally sounded at the bardos fighter base at 818 this was more than an hour after the Raiders had first been spotted 6 minutes later the lancasters passed a few miles to the east of bardos on their way North mine thought was hope to crush the fighters don't get near us if I got a one 109 up my backside and there would be very

little left for me finished with us when his cannon at 8:30 Kurt Schulz arrived at his Mesa SMI 109 fighter had he taken off then he could still have caught the lancasters but CT and his colleagues lost vital minutes getting off the ground for a start the planes were at the wrong end of the runway and then at the moment they were ready to take off air traffic control allowed a transport plane to land so they let this u52 that was coming fly in and land down the hill and uh so there was another 5

minutes lost just before 8:30 a.m. the lancasters began their approach to the turits RF cameras were again on hand to film it [Music] all so far there was still no sign of Kurt and his Fighters it was a Sunday yes I was standing uh on the deck then came the alarm and uh we saw the machine in South as the lancasters approached they were confronted by the first of tet's formidable Weaponry the ship trained its massive 15-in guns onto the Raiders each sh shell weighed more than a ton the tpet guns had a range of

17 miles even the big heavy guns could be elevated to reach aircraft it was a great unfolding orange Cloud this 15in shell went off would have probably taken two lancs out the sky together you could actually see these shells coming up they seem to come up so slowly it was a fascinating sight you never see anything like it again within a minute the rest of tet's defenses opened up on the advancing bombers my combat station was uh the anti-air gun you have to take your hat off to the German Gunners they'd got the altitude absolutely

[ __ ] on I mean we were 15,200 feet and the Flack was bursting exactly at that level but we were fortunate that they were a little bit early the the Flack was in front of us by a matter of a few yards when the fuel in a 200 galon tank is used up that's when it becomes dangerous because should a bit of flat get through it it's going to hit sort of vaporized uh fuel how do you feel you I admit you a bit excited and think Christ and I hope they don't hit us

I had to get that aerplane positioned so the bomb went down to hit this target which from 15,000 ft must have looked to my bomb like a dinky toy even though it was 900 ft long the first tall boy was released at 8:41 it scored a direct hit [Music] the next five recorded another Direct Hit three near misses and a stray yeah you could see it go down like a dart almost because it was painted bright green yeah you and uh it looked quite nice actually diving down there it went through the speed of sound

so what these poor Sailors f when two one or two of them landed when the machine come are coming against you you have you cannot get air enough it's so as one pressed you your your [Music] air after the first wave of six bombers Tony Iverson was in the second wave of three he attacked at 842 I bombed at number seven or number eight and I think I had a near miss or a not so near Miss I'm not sure I've never I can't go further than that this second wave scored two very near misses

the bombs were beginning to overwhelm the ship the first bomb had landed mid ships it led to one of the magazines blowing up bomb four had hit close to a turret it and blew it into the air bombs 57 9 and 14 had landed close by these also had a devastating effect producing shock waves that buckled the ship's frame and caused it to start to cap size the first nine aircraft bombed in one and a half minutes that's 90 seconds You Can Count 90 seconds just think of n 5 ton bonds coming down at you

nine Squadron followed up dropping their tall boys into the smoke as they exploded few were certain of the outcome there was smoke up at the one end I supp it would have been the the points he'd pained I think but the rear gun was quite convinced ly things going over skip as the lancasters turned away from the target they knew the danger wasn't over yet we realized we hadn't seen any Fighters which is amazing amazing luck they were luckier than they could have imagined the first German Fighters were less than 3 minutes away as the

last bomb was dropped it took me approximately 10 minutes to get TR from B out of us and uh when I arrived there the tpet was already turning over so I turned around and FW back there was nothing I could do Kurt had only just missed the defenseless lancasters all the crews returned home safely was it luck or were there other forces at work the sinking of the battleship turits after 33 failed attempts was a remarkable feat of navigation flying and precision bombing but it had a terrible human cost 1,700 Sailors were on board as

the ship began to capsize I I saw not the explosion from the hit on the ship but I feel the Quake you have you you are feeling that the ship make a jump from half meter and in the next moment the ship began to kze it goes so and so and and at last we hanging in the raining here and I go a moment later into the water yes and then I swim to the coastline on the water was oil and uh many of the swimmers L have their face in the water they were died

and uh it look I see it it was crazy it it it looks as as when footballs were swimming in in the ball a crazy sight vbal Ving was below decks when the ship capsized that of the 21-year-old Carl hin Kling was lucky enough to be on Shore at the time of the attack he rushed to the rescue of the hundreds of sailors trapped inside the hull for [Music] as the tide Rose the compartments began to fill with water The Rescuers could hear their inomed comrades singing deutchland Uber Alis until the voices fell [Music] silent

get so we have for in and they [Music] B [Music] 971 Sailors lost their lives but the Beast had been slain and looking back it's quite remarkable that the Raiders managed to get away with it uh when you think about it it's the Defenders who've actually got the odds stacked in their favor you've got the Squadron of uh of crack Fighters based near nearby apparently with the specific job of looking after the tpet you got the radar systems apparently pointing inwards yet there we are at the end of that morning the tpet is sunk and

the attackers have got away with it virtually scot-free now maybe it was just sheer good luck but I've often thought that perhaps there's another explanation for what happened [Music] on the island of andoya Patrick is following a new lead that might explain why the German Fighters weren't scrambled in time he's meeting local resident journalist sander Pon as a 17-year-old boy school boy sander worked in the Endo radar base for a German officer leftenant Carl Heinrich westner westner was a key Link in the radar communication Network on the island Pon thinks westner could have delayed Vital

Information to The Fighter Squadron at bardos we understand that wner had sympathy for England how did he let you know that that he was in sympathy with Germany's enemies he speak very good noran uh he said he was in noran but he show us at Silver that's like a a cigarette case or very nice or inside the the the union ja the Union Jack was inside [Laughter] the vno was in the right place at the right time but was he responsible for delaying Vital Information about the raid I think wner has a finger to stop

sending up Germany plane to take the U Lancaster yeah you you you may be right and that that westner as you say had a hand in the affair yes yes I no doubt no doubt to help support sander Peterson's story Patrick has been looking for more evidence he's uncovered a letter in the the Norwegian archives written by westner just after the war this really confirms uh this man's anti-nazi credentials now according to him he actually was actively working against his own people as early as 1944 it's not just him he's got at least three other

colleagues who were in this conspiracy if you like with him the Germans had a a sabotage plan which they were going to put in place if they was indeed an Allied landing and they've got quite an elaborate plan here for shooting their own officers and running up the White Flag uh he goes over to the underground the Norwegian uh resistance and they smuggle him out now if he his credentials weren't pucker uh I can't imagine they would uh they would do that willingly so he does actually match up uh to the description that were given

of him by sander so this new information opens the prospect uh of an intriguing new theory that a good German did intervene uh in a major operation of War on the side of the allies and had a material effect on the outcome on hearing the news that the Beast had finally been slain Churchill wrote to Stalin RAF bombers have sunk the turits let us rejoice together for the young Airmen of 9 and 617 squadrons there was relief that they had finally finished the job we really didn't know we'd sunk it until we got back to

near base and they wir they they send out a signal to say it had been destroyed yeah we felt felt marvelous really yeah it was called um church it was Beast wasn't it and I know we we said to ourselves well we've sunk the beast at last it's quite an interesting experience to to talk to you about something that happened very dearly 70 years ago and I'm just getting little flashes of memories I'm getting a little flash of memory about the mess beer flowing through Wing commander in the middle of it drunk as a n

and a great deal of laughter and shouting and chattering yes absolute celebration' been three times for the damn thing we were beginning to think that it really was Unsinkable Frank Tilly and basil fish celebrated their weekend leave with a trip to the London Palladium to see comedian Tommy trinder I remember Tommy trinder made making a joke about the tets and so we sat there feeling quite pleased with ourselves oh Basel and I 70 years ago Kurt Schulz nearly shot down Tony Iverson in the skies of Northern Norway today the former enemies are firm friends hello

good morning Tony hello I so glad I can talk with you again just one week after your 94th birthday I liked Kurt uh we got to know each other quite well and we have seen each other on my trips through California Tony was not too enthused about meeting a damn German uh uh pilot we were bit wary of each other uh for quite a while uh but then well we had a drink and things loosened up was a cool reception but we started talking and we became friends we never talked about the war we talked

about all kind of other things that were interesting to us talk with you again soon Tony right goodbye goodbye then we are he sounds not too strong it's situation where we as human beings finally come through after the politic Ians did with us whatever they wanted to do and we said yes sir 70 years on the raid that finally sank the turits is still considered one of the outstanding achievements of aerial Warfare I think it was very well planned very well executed and uh to S those big bombs in this close circle around and on

the ship was an accomplishment yeah but so thousand Germans died so that's something we have to consider too crazy crazy War for nothing eight years of my life that get to to me [Music] now it was pretty tough once but no it'ss oh God it's rather rather like the words at the ceremony at the sener isn't it you know they shall not grow old it's uh sticks in your throat a bit Yeah I think all war is Dreadful I do really I mean but if it came again we'd have to do the same again you

couldn't have the narcis in charge could you no [Music] way